[Molly604]

I'm new here and i guess I have a question.
What gives you hope? What makes you hopeful?

I've been in a dark state for so long and I really don't know when it will end.

[CANDC]

Welcome Molly to Psych Central(PC). Sorry to hear you are in a dark place. PC is a great place to meet like minds and compassionate people.

The forums are a meeting place for people and sharing ideas. You can create your own posts or reply to others http://forums.psychcentral.com

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Listened to this on radio the other night: NPR article on different therapies to deal with dark thoughts. http://forums.psychcentral.com/curre...-thoughts.html

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Hi Molly! I'm 53 and have been having problems with depression and anxiety since I was in my mid-20s.

I used to have a lot longer list of things that gave me hope, but now I'm pretty much down to one big one: I've been through several episodes of illness, now, and I always eventually get better. Not completely well, but much healthier emotionally.

This is a good community to share your thoughts and feelings with people who are having similar problems. I find that it provides me with emotional support and information and ideas for treatment sometimes, too.

Glad you're here.

[pegasus]

Hello Molly604, welcome to Psych Central.

Hope. Yes it is the one thing I hold on to in those dark times because at the age of 46 I have learnt that things always change, nothing stays at rock bottom forever. If you draw a graph of how our mental health is (for anyone) you would see that it naturally goes up and down in peaks and troughs. So... if you are at rock bottom, you are going to start coming up again, yes. I've also found that talking about issues really helps, not sure how the wonderful power of vocalising pain helps but it somehow gets things moving. Hold on to hope, like I said, things never stay as they are, at some point things start to move again. Please see your doctor.

[avlady]

hope comes from within too. others can help us on the way but we need to decide ourselves what we hope for ourselves, be it a job, kids, etc... we need to test the waters too. we hope things will go good, but they don't always and then we have to hope we can get through the rough patches too. the saying happiness is something to love, something to do and something to hope for comes in handy.

[RisuNeko]

I feel like you have to have a goal in mind. Something to hope for. Something reasonable. Right now I'm depressed and my goal is to pass my math class. If I achieve that, my next goal will be to apply to grad school. If I get into grad school, it will be to graduate. If I graduate, it will be to get a career. If I get a career, it will be to get married. If I get married it will be to have kids. If I have kids it will be to raise them well. And I think that's about all I can hope for in one lifetime. It's all about taking it to the logical next step and starting small. Don't get caught up in the big picture. Focus on what you can work toward changing today.